Feeding the pigs

Once a week I feed the pigs. Here I've got a 2,000lb supersack of feed hanging from a chain attached to the chain hook I welded onto my front loader bucket.

This is actually pretty hard to do. First you have to get the supersack here -- about 500' from the farm road. When I'm carrying a ton on the front loader I'm actually lifting it as little as I can to keep my center-of-mass low. If I have the sack high, as shown in this photo, and I hit a bump, I could tip the tractor over.

After you've carried it low across the field, then you have to make sure that you don't dent or knock the lid off the feeder when you're approaching. You can see by the dents in the feeder that there's been a few mishaps.

Next you get to the part that makes me the most nervous. If you look closely at the bottom of the sack you'll see a little bulge. There's actually a string there that you untie to get the bag to dump. I always worry that the chain will give away and snap my arm over the edge of the feeder and I'll have to cut it off to save myself. Or other similar dire thoughts. When I'm feeling particularly paranoid about this I'll take a long knife and cut a hole in the sack so I don't have to get underneath it at all. Yea, it's probably silly, but some days it's just that way.

After the sack dumps into the feeder I take it back and go and load up the other feeder. Between these two feeders I have 5,000lbs of feed in the field when I'm done filling. I find that these feeders have made my life much easier -- feeding is a once-a-week chore instead of a daily chore. Well worth the money.